Media Innovation Studio Dispatch 12th May

May 12, 2017

Mark Lochrie

Two new interns will be joining us over the coming weeks and months. Andreea Dulgheru will start with us for 4 weeks from, and Ben Carter will come onboard at the end of June for ten-weeks. Both will be working with John Mills on Wan/Ifra’s Global alliance for media innovation Media Lab Mapping project. They’ll be working with partners in France, Brazil, Denmark and Norway in assessing innovation structures in news media, academic and independent organisations. We’ll see if we can get them to introduce themselves in a future edition of the newsletter.

Another of our interns Aaaron Declerk has been working hard with Mark Lochrie and Andy Dickinson to get us closer to developing our low cost air pollution sensor kit. All part of a plan we have to create a network of pollution sensors at a community level. We just need to work out what all those wires do!

This week marked the first meeting of a group of colleagues interested in Research Opportunities in Arts and Wellbeing. Convened by Professor Stuart-Hampton-reeves, this gathering drew interest from researchers and creative practitioners across the School for Social work, Care and Community, Journalism, Media and Performance, Art Design and Fashion, and Funding, Development and Support. Emma Speed, the Creative Industries Innovation Manager and Dr John Law, Bid writer for the Faculty of Culture and Creative Industries attended to listen to colleagues ideas on collaborative projects and opportunities for transdisciplinary working. The group intends, in the first instance, to establish a network of people with an interest in this area to explore how, by working together, we can address some of the big challenges around promoting wellbeing in our communities. John has been using the Media Innovation Studio as a hub to explore research interests amongst F.C.C.I staff and there is clear emerging evidence of an overlap in Arts and Wellbeing, which is timely for this network to explore. If you are interested in learning more about this group, please contact John at JLaw3@Uclan.ac.uk

On Wednesday, Andy Dickinson headed over to Blackpool to present at the Blackpool Speakeasy to present his work around local data journalism . The Speakeasy is a salon style event that pulls in speakers on a diverse range of subjects. Previous subjects include work with Syrian refugees, sex works in Blackpool and, on the 8th June up a talk on propaganda in the Roman Empire. Best of all it’s held in a pub!

On Wednesday and Thursday Trinity Mirror were back for a two day event with their senior editorial staff. There was also the announcement that Neil Benson, the Editorial Director for TM regionals is retiring. We’ve worked with Neil for over 8 years and he’s one of the best in the industry.

It was a busy day on Thursday. No sooner had we said goodbye to TM then preparation began for the evening launch of the Lancashire Forum creative a new initiative from the university’s Centre for SME development. Aimed at Lancashire-based creative and digital SMEs, the ERDF backed programmed focusses on business, leadership and innovation development. It was a great event – you can see.